Smells nice. Kind of a classic cologne smell. Bergamot top with soapy leather, pine and sage. The citrus fades in about 30 minutes, and at its heart it is green soapy affair. It sits pretty quickly, and doesnt last all that long for its genre. But it is classy, aromatic, and well blended. Constructed nicely into a sort of updated old school feel. The leather felt most predominant to me in the opening and base. It was harder to disect than i thought it would be, and was much less pine tree-esque than one would be led to believe. To me it almost seems more Bleu de Chanel than Polo, regardless of what the notes read.

I have a 3ml decant of this fragrance. My initial impression was that this is the ultimate "generic perfume" smell. It starts out strong - a blast of chemicals that assaults the nose. The opening smells as if you mixed a dozen men's and women's perfumes together and sprayed the room with it.

Once it dries down, it mellows out a bit. Still very "perfumy" smelling, though. I think it leans feminine for the first 30 mins to an hour. Then it changes, and I start to get more of a barber-shop fougere from it. I notice the pine and spices other reviewers mention. It doesn't ever smell leathery to me, though. I would say after the first hour, it becomes a generic, light, unisex scent. To me, it definitely doesn't smell manly, but I realize that's very subjective. I can see some guys pulling this off, but I know I wouldn't be able to, even if I enjoyed the fragrance.

I actually started to wonder if I got a bad batch (maybe out-of-date?) decant, which is certainly possible. But for review purposes, I have to assume it is a legit sample. My impressions definitely don't match other reviews of this fragrance, though.

So overall, I would say it's not terrible. It's just not something that fits me at all. Smells too much like a generic women's perfume.

Bottega Veneta has been a designer on the scene since 1966, being based in Italy and intially known for their leather goods, the designer whose name literally translates from Italian as "Venetian Shop" finally entered the perfume realm in the 2010's. Bottega Veneta (2011) and Bottega Veneta Eau Legere (2013) made good headway for the label, so the eponymous men's fragrance came trundling along the same year as Eau Legere but not with a ton of fanfare. I walk by a Bottega Veneta shop on my way back from the commuter transit station in downtown Bellevue, and the shop there (among several high-end designers in a cluster) is the least-assuming boutique I've ever seen. Clean chrome letters on the sign, pale white lights, and their wares simply displayed without grand architectural design like the nearby Hermès shop, or ostentatious gold and black lacquer stripes of the neighboring Gucci boutique. Bottega Veneta Pour Homme offers itself in a similarly understated display of class, like a vintage Mercedes-Benz 600 all dressed in black, with hydraulic vacuum-powered windows that silently woosh up and down between chrome and walnut door housing. You'll smell like a million bucks wearing Bottega Veneta Pour Homme, but without screaming "I'm rich" a la Rick James like you might if wearing something louder. Bottega Veneta Pour Homme is like the young son of an old money family, trained in the previous generation's penchant for propriety and grace over the new money guy who wears a ring on every finger and neon running lights under his hopped-up AMG.

That's the key point of Bottega Veneta Pour Homme: it isn't loud, it isn't presumptuous or affected, but very classy while solidly within the designer realm despite it's niche compositional values. Synthetics near the end of the wear will of course betray it's price point and modernity to the obsessive Creed batch code fiend or vintage hound that wants to know where the patchouli was sourced (and there is patchouli here). Overall, Bottega Veneta Pour Homme is a modern designer take on the old 70's aromatic leather chypre type colognes such as 1975's Bogart Eau de Toilette Pour Homme (a.k.a. Bogart Signature) or 1978's Van Cleef & Arpels Pour Homme, but without the oakmoss and heavy orris soap to date it. Granted, there is some slight soapy vibes here at the very end, because how can there not be with a composition like this? Key difference between Bottega Veneta Pour Homme and it's inspiration is the sharp, neutral tone Bottega Veneta takes throughout, rather than rounded balsamic take it's predecessors utilize. This scent opens with bergamot, pine and juniper, with no lavender in sight, instantly pulling it ahead of older scents in this style. The middle of clary sage, fir, and pimento adds a green, peppery, and gray slice of freshness that backs up the citrus and juniper top. The pine and fir don't really take over the scent as they might otherwise thanks to the heavy labadum, leather, and dry patchouli base, but the scratchy norlimbanol "karmawood" final note is where this ends. Bottega Veneta Pour Homme still has to appeal to younger tastes depite being stretched over an old-school framework, making it at once mature but still possessing the sheen of a contemporary aquatic, just not with any actual aquatic notes.

Modern noses okay with synthetic bases won't even flinch at Bottega Veneta Pour Homme's finish, and indeed even higher-end niche houses employ these chemicals from time to time so even folks normally swimming in Amouage or Mancera have smelled worse than this. I think the synthetic wood base is actually quite a propos for Bottega Veneta Pour Homme, as it's a deliberately bleak and post-modernist approach to the barrel-chested herb fest of the 70's anyway, that makes itself feel confident in it's masculinity but with a steely detached reserve rather than an unbuttoned shirt. It's more about "I don't care about you" and less about screaming "I'm the boss". Bottega Veneta Pour Homme is a neutralized patchouli scent bereft of any resin or sexy animalics and thus barely recognizable as such, being very safe for the office as a result, and a melancholic statement of chill winds and a dried forest floor on an overcast day, bottled for your sniffing pleasure. This one won't get anyone's knickers in a twist but that's not really it's purpose I feel, and certainly isn't for everyone, even if those who do enjoy it ultimately love it to pieces. There's not a lot of "I just plain like it" middle ground with this one, because of how emotionless it is. I'll admit I'm still uncertain if it's full bottle-worthy for me, even if I endorse the artistry here with thumbs up. Also available in an extreme version and eau de parfum these days, Bottega Veneta Pour Homme is easy enough to sample before buying. Interesting stuff!